Monday, August 18, 2008

More Olympic Frothings

by Jes

Yes, I am still boycotting/not watching the Summer Olympics, but with no hockey news worth commenting about, and a blogging itch to scratch, I'm gonna bitch about them (again). How long until preseason starts? I really need some actual hockey news or I'm going to cry.

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1. It was certainly nice to see Canada break out and win some actual medals! With all of the resources and people we have in this country, the fact that we had less medals than Azerbaijan was pretty sad. Canada has 9 now (at least that is what I heard last), which finally vaults us into respectable territory. Canada is never good at Summer Olympics, but we ought to be at least in the Top 20.

2. There is no position worse than finishing FOURTH at an Olympic event.

You finish last? You can laugh it about it down the road ... or you know you weren't even THAT good to begin with.

You finish fourth? You are the best athlete not to get a single piece of bling. There is a certain cachet to having an a Bronze Medal. Saying "I finished fourth at Olympics" just doesn't sound 1/50th as impressive, does it?

3. I don't get the love over women's beach volleyball. These women look way too skinny and manly to actually want to lust over. I know it’s a major step up from women's gymnastics (no jailbait worth looking at there), but still not enough to make me turn away from women's tennis.

Do these women look hot to you?

4. I will be "that guy" and piss on the Michael Phelps love a bit. Yes, he's a dominating swimmer, and I have nothing personal against him, but his gold medal record is a bit of a fraud.

A pole vaulter, javelin thrower, or a softball player can win only one medal for their sport, right? Why should a swimmer be able to rack up multiple medals for the same sport? All they do is change the distance by a small amount or change the type of stroke, allowing one guy to basically rack up a bunch of medals simply because he's a far better athlete than his swimming peers. 100m butterfly vs. 200m butterfly vs. 100m freestyle, etc ... what's the difference?

Want to level the playing field? Give shot putters a chance to win five different medals ... just increase the size and/or weight of the ball they throw for each event.

Let's give the other athletes in other sports to win multiple medals for the same sport. Otherwise, shut up about Phelps and his record and realize that swimming is the one sport that allows such a 'record' to occur.

5. How does one decide to be a professional speed walker? Rejects from the running team? I've never seen or head about speed walking competitions other than at an Olympics. This is the kinda job that falls down there with "guy who cleans up the set of a porn movie".

Of course, this is the same corrupt regime that needed to have a 'cuter' girl lip-synch the opening ceremonies. *sigh*

7. Steve Simmonsis still a douchebag. I hope he gets cancer from breathing in too many Beijing fumes, or AIDS from his escapades with Al Strachan. Seriously.

They ran the women's marathon here yesterday morning at the Olympic Games and no one died.

No one succumbed to thick air and pollution. Many collapsed and fell: But none of it had anything to do with the conditions, the temperature or the apparent quality of air.

As if people are going to keel over and die right on the spot! Just wait until people suffer long term effects. Some athletes have already reported that they felt a certain odd 'fire' in their lungs while training or running, and not the usual kind. Smokers don't die after one cigarette, do they? How has Steve Simmons managed to live this long with an IQ of 52?

The most pressing issues of any Olympics -- facilities, housing, transportation, venues, the athletes, security and this one, censorship -- have for the most part been taken care of.

Censorship taken care of? BWA HAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, MSM sports reporters should never comment on political issues (Perry Mason, are you listening?). It just exposes them for the morons they are.

Jes, With all due respect, you have a very narrow view of swimming. You are correct that swimmers can win multiple medals while javelin throwers can only win one. However, it's just as easy to turn the tables on that and say that it's unfair that a 100m backstroke specialist can only win one medal while a track and field star proficient in several disciplines can win several medals.

There is a HUGE difference between the 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly. It's an entirely different discipline. Just like there is a huge difference between the javelin throw and the hammer throw. Or between the balance beam and the floor routine. Or between a 100m dash and a 100m hurdles. Or between a 10k and a marathon.

I hate to imagine how mad you would be if Phelps also swam the backstroke and breaststroke.

1) All these events makes us wonder: Who in hell invented all these 'strokes'? Isn't one enough to get from one place in the water to another? LOL 2)More perplexing, 'sports' that are rarely see other than every 4 years. Synchronized diving? Come on. When is the synchronized boxing scheduled?

Canada, for some reason, excels at these synchronized sports... I could never figure out if it's because we're particularly good at being in tune with one another, or if simply other countries don't really get into these events, therefore making Canada a default champion.

Not saying it's easy, but how come the degree of difficulty for synchro diving is so much lower than regular diving? Surely there's two people out there who could do some of the hardest dives in tandem with another person... I'm sure most of the synch "athletes" can do way tougher dives than what they do TOGETHER with another diver...

Either way, I'm still wondering why golf isn't an olympic sport... There's plenty of shit that's even less of a sport (like the shooting, or riding a horse)... Spare me, the HORSE is the only athlete in equestrian.

I find it extremely amusing that only a couple days ago everyone was afraid we wouldn't get any medals, and now we've got more than we got in Athens. It also amazes me that people didn't stop to think that most of the sports that we were medal hopefuls in weren't going to have medal rounds until later in the games.

I don't know Octopus... Read point 4 of the blog post again. Nowhere is anyone putting the diss on swimming... It's definitely a demanding sport. I think Jes' point has more to do with the "record" for gold medals. You have to admit, there's not a lot of disciplines where you can be a multiple medalist, really, at least as a percentage of the whole... So, when Jes posts:

All they do is change the distance by a small amount or change the type of stroke, allowing one guy to basically rack up a bunch of medals simply because he's a far better athlete than his swimming peers.

Czechmate-I've known Jes for a long time, and I know he hates it when "Amerika" does well in anything. If Phelps was Canadian, you think he'd be quibbling about it? Not hardly!

Plus, he's just flat wrong, in saying that swimming is the only sport that allows multiple medals. Ever hear of gymnastics, or track and field? There are others, as the following link shows: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/99/GL0000000.shtml

Phelps is a monster, probably the greatest Olympian of all-time, a rep he will likely cement in 2012. I just read that he's planning another blitz, with a slightly-different selection of events.

Now, why isn't there a Canadian kid putting in the endless miles in the tank? All the water's frozen up there, I guess.